(Video Transcript) The Biggest Ergonomics Data Mistake You Can Make

Managing an ergonomics process means managing a lot of data.

Every assessment you do, every improvement you make, every training that you take… these are all examples of important pieces of data about your ergonomics process.

And you might have heard that data is the new oil, or the world’s new most valuable resource.

The reason this metaphor works is because of the way these resources become valuable.

Like oil, raw data is not valuable in and of itself. Rather, the value is created when data is refined so that it can become a decision-making tool.

In the information age, better data leads to better decisions, better decisions lead to better actions, and better actions lead to better outcomes.

So your mission when it comes to the data your ergonomics process generates is to make sure it is refined and therefore providing you with useful information you can use to make decisions.

In order to arrive at refined, valuable ergonomics data, you need to be able to collect, store, organize, analyze, and distribute your data effectively.

If you don’t follow these best practices, you won’t end up with valuable, refined data that you can use to make better decisions.

Unfortunately, most ergonomics processes we see are using outdated tools and methods to manage data. The most common thing we see is some combination of paper-based tools combined with Excel spreadsheets.

This can work fine for a while, but as your process matures things start to fall through the cracks. Eventually, best practices fall by the wayside and there is very little value created from ergonomics data.

To illustrate what I mean, here is what it looks like to try to implement just one improvement project using outdated tools.

So first you collect data for your ergonomic assessment using a data collection sheet. Maybe you take some pictures and video. Then you enter that data into an Excel sheet to perform a calculation for your assessment. Once you have your score, maybe you generate an assessment report in a Word Doc. Then you add your risk assessment score to a master spreadsheet.

After that, if you’re following best practices, you’re prioritizing tasks for improvement projects, conducting what-if analysis to identify the root causes of the high score, creating improvement plans, and cost-justifying solutions to gain approval, all the while transferring data back to a master spreadsheet and creating reports every step of the way to keep the team up to speed.

Once you’ve implemented the improvement, you collect data for a post-improvement assessment, take your after photos and video, and enter your data back into another Excel sheet to get your post-improvement risk score. Finally, you transfer that data back into the master spreadsheet.

So for just one improvement project you’re looking at at least 14 different files generated not including pictures and video and not including all of the emails back and forth, sharing the files with team members, chat threads and all of the other communication and collaboration you need to have with the team in order to make this project happen.

This is a lot to manage!

When we see ergonomics teams using outdated tools, we see data management practices fall behind.

What happens a lot of the time when outdated tools are used is that different files and tools end up getting used across team members and worksites, violating best practices around data collection. This makes it harder to standardize assessments and make sure you have an apple-to-apple comparisons between your jobs and worksites.

Outdated tools make it almost impossible to store your data correctly. Files end up scattered all over the place, in different file folders, emails, chat threads, sometimes paper documents even get thrown away and are lost forever. This violates best practices around data storage.

Given the issues around data collection and storage, it becomes harder and takes a lot more work to organize your data in a meaningful way. Is the master spreadsheet up to date? Does everyone have access to all the necessary files? Is the folder system in Drive organized in a coherent way and is this consistent across departments, jobs, and tasks?

These are all major challenges when you’re collaborating as a team. What we often see is that it’s too much work to keep everything together and organized in a productive way, so most of the data ends up in silos. Different people have different levels of access and it’s not very well organized.

Now because most data isn’t organized, it becomes even harder to analyze for useful insights, violating best practices in data analysis. Tracking KPIs and progress toward your goals becomes a major project when it should be easy and require almost no effort at all.

And then finally, because data wasn’t collected well, stored in a single place, organized into coherent structures, and analyzed into something useful, you have very little valuable data left to distribute and make widely available to all stakeholders, violating best practices in distribution.

So in these situations, the unfortunate thing is that even though a lot of potentially useful data was generated, there was very little value created out of it.

If this persists over time, people will eventually give up if they don’t perceive much value coming out of the data, and this puts your ergonomics process at risk. Any process is much, much less sustainable when people don’t like the tools they have to do the job.

Fortunately, there is a better way.

And that way is to use cloud-based ergonomics software that makes it easy to collect, store, organize, analyze, and distribute your ergonomics data all in one place.

Because we’ve faced all of the challenges when it comes to ergonomics data, we decided to create a software platform of our own called ErgoPlus Industrial. It automatically takes your raw data and transforms it into a valuable decision-making resource, whether you have one worksite using the software or a hundred.

Whether you decide to use our software or you find another product that meets your needs, there is a ton of value created in your ergonomics process by adopting cloud-based software.

With ErgoPlus Industrial, everyone in your organization has access to the same best practice tools and training. These standardized tools allow for consistent data collection and comparison of jobs and tasks from one worksite to another. And standardized training makes sure that all users know how to properly collect assessment data and use all of the tools.

So access to standardized tools and training allow for consistent and accurate data collection.

All data is stored to a single, secure database in the cloud so your ergonomics process has a single system of record.

This makes it easier to organize your data, so inside ErgoPlus Industrial there is an easy to use and easy to navigate user interface that surfaces your most relevant data. You can also use the search and filter functionality to easily find any data you need, and on the dashboard you’ll find your team’s action items – because the data is organized, the system can actually tell you what to do next.

Data inside ErgoPlus Industrial is also automatically analyzed, KPIs are tracked automatically and displayed using data visualization – charts, and graphs so you can easily understand it.

And finally, your data inside ErgoPlus Industrial can be accessed from any device connected to the internet at any time. So all stakeholders across your entire organization has access at all times and can use the software to make real-time decisions.

So, in summary, the data your ergonomics process generates can create value when it is refined and useful for making decisions.

Using outdated tools destroys that value by making it harder and nearly impossible to maintain best practices.

Software is the right tool for the job and creates value by turning your ergonomics data into valuable insights you can use to make better decisions and create better outcomes. This is the key to a sustainable ergonomics process.